Google Maps features launched in the last 6 months of 2008

Remembering what happened yesterday is difficult let alone what happened last month. Google Maps changes so quickly and the odds of any one person seeing and knowing every change is quite small. The net result is a frequent banter amongst the Localites (David Mihm, Matt McGee, Steve Espinosa, Martijn Beijk, Will Scott, Miriam Ellis etc) about features that one or the other of us have just discovered but may or may not be new.

The most recent such query was: When did Google Maps start showing Reverse business lookup? This feature allows a searcher to type an address and get back a list of all businesses known to Google at that location. For example one could search on the address 101 West 23RD St, New York, NY? to see all of the businesses located in the UPS Store at that location.

I suppose that this feature could be used as a way to ferret out Mapspam or if you were a creative mapspammer you could ferret out hard to discover central locations as the fake location of your business. Do you think that Google will put a double check in on that one?

Google Maps Guide Jade though, has made our primary game of stump the local chump less challenging by publishing a relatively complete list of all Map features launched in the last 6 months:
* 2X Street View coverage (12/9/08)
* Maps browse, Local Business Center, and Local Trends for China (11/27/08)
* New UI for Street View (11/25/08)
* AIR support for Maps API for Flash(11/23/08)
* Street View in Spain, Italy, and France (11/4/08)
* Reverse geocoding for Maps API (10/26/08)
* Transit for New York (9/23/08)
* Reverse business lookup (9/9/08)
* Map Maker tool for creation of map data (8/29/08)
* Street View launched in Japan and Australia (8/6/08)
* Google Maps UI redesign (8/5/08)
* Walking directions (7/22/08)

Please consider leaving a comment as your input will help me (& everyone else) better understand and learn about local.

Google Maps features launched in the last 6 months of 2008
by Mike Blumenthal

I’ve used address search if I already knew the name of a competitor and see if they registered multiple businesses with different names for each service they were offering at a specific address. Worked well and with data provided able to submit spam report.

Hmm, yes, I can see that Martijn. That supports Mike’s idea of using this as a spam seeking tool.

But for the general, non-spam-seeking public? What is the scenario in which this would be useful? I have a hard enough time remembering telephone numbers…how can anyone remember addresses and use them to look up businesses? I can’t picture the scenario.